HISTOBT OF THE ATOMIC THEORY. 75 



without distinct facts as a proof, but relying on his reasoning 

 powers alone; deciding that fire, air, earth, and water, are 

 the same, although burnt out of his house by one, and 

 drowned by the other, and to obtain a third, risking everything 

 that he possesses. He has with difficulty been able to think 

 of the facts before him, except under the influence of some 

 previous conclusion, and pressed to the earth as he has been 

 by physical difficulties, as well as by sensuality, he has con- 

 tinually clothed it with immateriality. Sometimes he appears 

 as a spiritual being, from some higher state of his metempsy- 

 chosis, with difficulty treating conceptions new to him about 

 mere material things, or perhaps more like a material being 

 oppressed with weakness of conception, grasping at more than 

 he can understand, he has failed to see clearly the facts that 

 of all others seem to stand most prominent before him. 



The idea of matter representing the present stratum of 

 knowledge obtained from experiment, and which chemists 

 so long entirely missed, is, that there exist bodies which we 

 cannot divide and call simple, that these by union among them- 

 selves form other bodies; that when united the original bodies 

 are by no means lost, and may be again separated without 

 losing any of their original indestructible properties. This 

 statement is a simple relation of facts. These bodies may 

 be farther divisible ; they may be, and probably are, all con- 

 vertible into one, but when we trace them further than our 

 experiments warrant us, we go back to the position of the 

 Greeks, who have already said nearly all that the mind 

 seems able to attain to, unassisted by the study of nature. 

 Indeed, this idea cannot be said to be in any way new, 

 but one of the very oldest, although frequently lost, to be 

 seen at intervals in fragments, but not until within the 

 memory of man to obtain permanent ground in science: 

 although inevitably doomed to prove only a portion of the 

 truth, it is no less true in its own limits. So simple is the 

 idea, requiring too such enormous labour and long time to 



